“‘You want to know what art is? I’ll tell you what art is. Art is what remains when the bullshit that invades your mind and your soul from the day you are born is expelled for a moment — for only a moment, a moment so fleeting it can’t be measured — and you’re left with a clarity that sees and feels and knows the meaning of our existence, in a way that can’t be explained or reduced or systemized, that can only be conveyed, like wine or water in a cup, from one soul, one point of consciousness, to another. Then the clarity is gone, the bullshit resumes, and you must struggle with tortured memories of that vanished moment, and the painful knowledge of how far from it you are now, until the miracle happens again — if it happens again, because you can never be sure it will. That’s what art is, for both the giver and the receiver of the cup.’ Giancarlo Sobretti (1890-1981), Italian painter and sculptor, interview with Il Manifesto, April 23, 1979.” Pencil sketch.